British PM Starmer asks for immigration lessons from Italian Meloni – DNyuz

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has met his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni in Rome to discuss tackling illegal immigration.

Ahead of Monday’s meeting, the UK prime minister said he wanted to “understand” the “dramatic reduction” in the number of migrants arriving in Italy. The visit by the far-right Italian leader has drawn criticism from members of Starmer’s left-wing Labour Party.

Starmer also visited a national immigration coordination centre with Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi.

Since Labour won the election in July, Starmer has pledged to tackle illegal immigration, despite rejecting the previous Conservative government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.

His meeting with Meloni, leader of the far-right anti-immigration Brothers of Italy party, has drawn criticism.

Labour MP Kim Johnson told The Guardian newspaper it was “disturbing” to see Starmer “trying to learn lessons from a neo-fascist government”.

Dangerous

Johnson noted that the visit came shortly after the UK was rocked by far-right riots in which mosques and migrant reception centres were targeted.

The arrival of undocumented migrants and asylum seekers in small boats from France remains a dangerous problem for British political parties.

More than 22,000 people have already made the perilous Channel crossing this year, a slight increase compared to the same period in 2023.

Dozens of people died, including eight when a boat carrying about 60 people ran aground on rocks on Saturday night. Fourteen boats carrying 801 people reached Britain the same day.

British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper defended the government’s decision to seek advice from Italy’s right-wing government, telling the BBC that the government “has a moral obligation to ensure that we tackle the criminal gangs that are putting lives at risk”.

Offshore centres

Although Starmer has rejected the Rwanda plan, he has not ruled out arrangements where asylum claims are processed offshore.

Italy reached an agreement with Albania in November to establish two centres to house people while their asylum applications are processed.

People whose asylum applications have been rejected will be sent back to their country of origin, while those whose applications have been accepted will be granted access to Italy.

Meloni’s government has also reached an agreement with Tunisia, which states that the country will receive aid in exchange for greater efforts to prevent refugees travelling to Italy from leaving the North African country to cross the Mediterranean.

Rome also renewed a 2017 agreement with the internationally recognized Libyan government in Tripoli, under which Rome provides training and funding to the coast guard to help stem the departure of refugees and return those already at sea to Libya.

Human rights groups say the policy is pushing thousands of refugees back to Libya, where they face torture and ill-treatment and arbitrary detention.

During a tour of the migrant coordination centre, Starmer said it appeared the lower arrivals in Italy were due to “the work that has been done in a number of countries where people are coming from”.

“I have long believed, by the way, that prevention and stopping travel in the first place is one of the best ways to address this particular problem,” he said.

Since the beginning of the year, the number of refugees arriving in Italy by sea has fallen sharply, the Interior Ministry said. From January 1 to September 13, 44,675 people arrived, compared to 125,806 in the same period in 2023.

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